Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things . Weekly Alibi . 06-06-97

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things

DIRECTED BY: Bob Clark

REVIEWED: 06-06-97

This flick supposedly has a good-sized cult following, but why is it I can never find anyone who'll admit to liking it? Directed by "Benjamin" (Bob) Clark, who went on to direct Porky's (as well as the classic Christmas Story and the sadly overlooked Murder by Decree), Children tells the tale of a little Floridian acting troupe led by co-scripter and makeup guy Alan Ormsby (in one of the four or five most obnoxious performances in film history). Ormsby takes his flock on a midnight boat ride to a small island, where he attempts to raise the dead by means of a really lame ritual. When it seems his plan has failed, Ormsby and the gang take a disinterred corpse back to an old abandoned house for a night of bickering. Unbeknownst to our band of thespians, the ritual has succeeded--it just needed a little time to kick in. Soon, the dead are crawling outta the ground and before you can say "George Romero," the old house is surrounded by hungry, shambling corpses. Of course, we wade forever through the kind of snappy dialogue that makes me want to throw furniture before we finally get to see the rotting horde on the march. Even still, this flick reeks of the low-budget funk that sends me into delirium, so I can overlook the delay. Ormsby (who later wrote My Bodyguard and Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People) wears an unbelievable pair of striped pants, equalled only by the hideous trousers worn by Jack Nicholson in Rebel Rousers. A Sandra Bullock-lookin' hippie chick freaks out. A fat guy says "I peed my pants" about 8,000 times. The Orms beds down with a corpse for a philosophical discussion. And, man, don't even get me started on how cool the zombies look--all zero-budget cotton-and-Rice-Krispies style. For added thrills, one character is apparently hugged to death by a zombie! I love it, and I'm not afraid to tell the world! (VCI)

--Scott Phillips

Other Films by Bob Clark
A Christmas Story
Baby Geniuses
Black Christmas
Porky's

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